As Nariman Behravesh, lead economist with IHS, has noted “nurturing the process of innovation will ensure that the huge improvement in the human condition that has occurred over the past two centuries was not a fluke of history”. Indeed, nurturing innovation was the primary topic of conversation at Qualcomm Life Connect 2015 (Internet of Medical Things) held in San Diego during August 31 and September 1, 2015. With cautious optimism about short-term growth expectations for digital health, and more resolute optimism for growth in the long-term, the event brought together several key players in the digital health ecosystem that are making use of Qualcomm’s 2net/Healthy Circles connectivity platform. This article is a synopsis of Connect 2015 with additional insight from recent work that IHS has conducted in regard to digital health.

The world market for wearable technologies was worth an estimated $11.35 billion in 2014, up by nearly 18% from 2013. The market is continuously experiencing high growth, which is supported by demand from several wearable applications including medical, fitness, and infotainment.

This study provides analysis of consumer adoption and awareness of wearable technology in the United States, the United Kingdom and China, serving as a guide to forecasting the market in the near-term.

In the last few weeks, three if the technology industry’s biggest giants, Cisco, IBM, and HP have announced over $4 billion in investments into cloud services. Are these massive investments just smoke and mirrors, a game of positioning in the “next” great thing, or is this a true sign of the next great thing, the cloud?

Android Wear is a new version of Android aimed at wearable devices. LG and Motorola will be among the first to launch smartwatches for the platform. Google is already seeding the market with an app development kit for Android Wear. Shrewdly, Google is leveraging Google Now as a key part of its wearable content and services. Unlike other wearable device makers, Google is able to leverage its extensive search capabilities which already provides bite-sized contextual content to Android smartphone owners.

After entering the year with high hopes, the global PC market has seen its prospects dim, with worldwide shipments set to decline in 2012 for the first time in 11 years, according to the IHS iSuppli Compute Platforms Service at information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).The total PC market in 2012 is expected to contract by 1.2 percent to 348.7 million units, down from 352.8 million in 2011, as shown in the figure below. Not since 2001—more than a decade ago—has the worldwide PC industry suffered such a decline.

Amid high pricing and a lack of effective marketing to draw consumer’s attention away from other hot-selling mobile gadgets, global ultrabook shipments are falling short of expectations in 2012, prompting IHS to cut its near-term forecast for the next-generation notebooks.An estimated 10.3 million ultrabooks will ship worldwide in 2012, according to an IHS iSuppli Compute Platforms Topical Report from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). This is down from the previous forecast issued earlier this year of 22 million units. In the newly adjusted forecast for 2012, more than half of the shipments for the year are expected to come in the fourth quarter.

After a generation of setting the pace and calling the shots in the computer market, the Microsoft Corp./Intel Corp. cartel known as Wintel now finds itself playing catch-up in the new era of smartphones and media tablets, spurring a widening rift in the historic alliance. Despite a flurry of activities to adjust to the changed realities of the technology industry, Wintel is expected to suffer a declining share of the “new” computer market, a category consisting not just of PCs but also of the much faster-growing smartphone and media tablet segments. Microsoft’s share of the operating system market for the three products combined is expected to slip to 33 percent in 2016, down from 44 percent in 2011, according to an IHS iSuppli DRAM Dynamics Report from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).

With their shipments projected to surge this year and beyond, all-in-one (AiO) PCs will help prop an ailing market for overall desktop PC systems, according to the IHS iSuppli Compute Platforms Service at information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS). Shipments of AiO PCs are forecast to reach 16.4 million units this year, up a robust 20 percent from 13.7 million units last year. In comparison, worldwide growth of traditional desktop PC shipments in 2012 will amount to a dismal 0.2 percent—rising from approximately 132.0 million units to 132.3 million units.